Live updates: Houthis claim attacks on Saudi oil facility and Yemeni port as regional conflict escalates

• Widening conflict: The Iran-backed Houthi militant group claims to have targeted Saudi Arabian forces in Yemen and mounted a separate attack on a major Saudi oil refinery on the Red Sea coast, as the conflict continues to expand in the Middle East.

• Iran’s conditions: Iran says it will not start talks with the US because of what it said were breaches of the terms of their agreement signed in June, though the two sides are communicating via intermediaries. Iran’s national security chief issued a list of demands for the US to fulfill before the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.

• Trump Gaza plan rebuffed: Elsewhere, Israel has rejected the latest US plan to move towards the next stage of peace in Gaza, demanding the full disarmament of Hamas before withdrawing forces. Hamas said it would only go through with the deal if Israel halts strikes and pulls troops back to the enclave’s “yellow line.”

The Iran-backed Houthi rebel group claimed today that it targeted Saudi Arabian forces in the Yemeni city of Mocha and separately mounted an attack on a major Saudi oil refinery on the Red Sea coast.

Notably, these reported attacks come just days after Pakistan and Turkey signed a NATO-style mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia in Mecca.

The pact stipulates that an attack on any of the three countries “shall be regarded as attack on them all.”

The official rationale for the agreement is “to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression” and further provide “for the enhancement of all aspects of defense cooperation among the three states,” according to a statement released by all three countries.

Turkey has the second-largest military in NATO, behind only the US, while Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed Muslim nation.

Iranian officials have warned since Friday that the mutual defense pact will not guarantee Saudi Arabia’s security, attempting to downplay the agreement.

“The Saudis should understand that a paper agreement with Turkey and Pakistan will not bring them security, just as decades of one-sided dependence on the Americans failed to do so,” Ebrahim Rezaei, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said on Friday.

CNN’s Sophia Saifi, Issy Ronald and Abbas Al Lawati contributed to this reporting.

The Iran-backed Houthi militant group claimed a short while ago that it had carried out a “large-scale and precise military operation” targeting Saudi forces in the Yemeni city of Mocha on the Red Sea.

It claimed the attack was carried out in response to Saudi Arabia’s “continued mobilization and reinforcement of its forces with weapons and equipment,” as well as attacks in western Yemen, the Houthis said in a statement.

Images circulating on social media and verified by CNN appear to show large plumes of smoke over Mocha. CNN has attempted to reach out to the Interior Ministry of Yemen’s United Nations-backed government for comment.

The Houthis said the strike on the city was “accurate” and that it “resulted in widespread destruction of equipment and weapons, and the death and injury of dozens, including Saudis, using a large number of ballistic missiles and drones.”

Yemen TV, which is owned by the country’s internationally recognized government, said the Houthis were “working to destroy the infrastructure of the Yemeni people by targeting commercial ports and deepening the siege against the civilian population.”

Some context: The war in Yemen dates back over a decade, and is primarily a conflict between the Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognized government.

After the Arab Spring in 2011, the Houthis seized a northern province and later the capital Sanaa, which they still hold, along with much of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline.

US-allied Saudi Arabia spent seven years trying and failing to dislodge the Houthis from northern Yemen, launching a large-scale offensive against the militant group in 2015. The ensuing conflict provoked one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

This post has been updated with developments. CNN’s Farida Elsebai, Nadeen Ebrahim and Anna Cooban contributed to this reporting.

Iran and the US are not engaged in talks and Tehran will not start discussions if Washington continues to breach an interim deal between the two countries signed in June, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said.

However, he added that Iran was continuing to exchange messages through intermediaries, and that these intermediaries were trying to find ways to resume negotiations.

Regarding ongoing negotiations with Oman to reach a deal to allow safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, Araghchi said they have “progressed well” and are now in the final stages, with the two countries set to determine a new sea route in the key waterway.

Eyes are once again on the Strait of Hormuz today, after Iran issued a list of concessions the US must make in order for the vital waterway to be reopened.

Catch up on the latest developments below:

CNN’s Hanna Ziady, Valey Arya, Eyad Kourdi, Sophie Tanno, Mitchell McCluskey, Julia Benbrook and Ibrahim Dahman contributed to this reporting.

The list of demands from Iran can’t have surprised the White House. Hardliners have been repeating the mantra on a daily basis: the limited agreement in the works with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz is not the same as reopening the vital waterway.

For that, they say, “America must correct its behavior.”

On Saturday, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a highly influential figure in the Revolutionary Guards, set out what that correction would entail.

Zolghadr demanded the US lift its naval blockade and withdraw its military forces from around Iran.

The US must pay damages caused to Iran by the wars this year and in June last year (which was principally conducted by Israel), he said. And it must lift sanctions and release, unconditionally, Iranian assets frozen abroad.

The implication of Zolghadr’s statement was that these conditions must be fulfilled before or in tandem with any compromise on the strait, which US President Donald Trump has consistently pledged to reopen.

Iran’s demands are at odds with the memorandum of understanding reached with the US in June, which held that sanctions would be fully removed once a final deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program was reached and envisaged a phased release of assets

The Trump administration has not responded to the latest Iranian demands.

“What we’re really working through now is how you can actually set up a traffic scheme so that the ships that pass can pass through safely,” US Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Saturday.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed an attack on Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery Sunday, a major crude oil refinery located on the Red Sea coast in southwestern Saudi Arabia.

In a statement, the Houthis said they “successfully targeted the Aramco refinery in Jazan with a drone,” adding that the attack was “in response to the Saudi enemy’s drones incursions into the airspace of Saada and Hajjah governorates.”

The Saudi Energy Ministry said a fire had broken out at dawn at a facility belonging to Saudi Aramco’s refinery in Jazan, that was extinguished by the company’s firefighting teams. It added that no injuries had been reported.

Remember: The incident comes as the Middle East war has been expanding. The Houthis are one of several Iranian proxies that have threatened to widen the conflict with the rebel group striking commercial shipping and recently ramping up attacks targeting Saudi Arabia.

For Riyadh, the revived Houthi threat is sabotaging its attempts to reroute millions of barrels of oil from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea for export as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut.

Aramco is the world’s top oil exporter. On Tuesday, the company’s CEO Amin Nasser, said 2.6 billion barrels of crude have been lost from global supplies during the war with Iran, Reuters reported.

Iran says it is “very close” to a deal with Oman on managing the Strait of Hormuz, but that an agreement won’t be sufficient on its own to reopen the vital waterway.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said under the agreement, vessels would transit the strait via a temporary route until the countries agreed to a new route that would replace the historic “Traffic Separation Scheme,” which ships had been using before the war.

The waterway has been effectively closed by Iran since the US and Israel began the war back in February. It is the main route for shipping crude from oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the rest of the world.

Both Tehran and Muscat have Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in the strait.

According to the United Nations, a state has “sovereign rights” to explore, exploit, conserve and manage the natural resources of the waters in its EEZ.

However, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), “ships of all States, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea.”

A coastal state should not “hamper the innocent passage of foreign ships through the territorial sea,” it says, except in specific outlined scenarios. It may “take the necessary steps in its territorial sea to prevent passage which is not innocent,” UNCLOS outlines.

CNN’s Hanna Ziady, Aida Karimi and Sana Noor Haq contributed to this reporting.

Tehran has issued a list of demands for the US to meet before it will agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to state media.

Meanwhile, fighting persists in Yemen, where troops carried out a military operation against Iran-backed Houthi militants on Saturday.

Over the last few weeks, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine has privately made clear to other top advisers that the US needs to find an off-ramp from the war with Iran.

The military options on the table to escalate the conflict could backfire and airpower alone is unlikely to achieve President Donald Trump’s stated objectives, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Caine is not alone in his view that the war has reached a crossroads. He has discussed concerns about the military options for escalating the conflict and raised the prospect of finding an off-ramp from the war with other key Cabinet officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, two of the sources said.

The top US general has recently side-barred with some of those key, like-minded Trump advisers in an effort to ensure they are on the same page ahead of meetings with the president. The aim has been to make clear the limitations and pitfalls of the available military options, including those that do not involve putting US boots on the ground, the sources said.

Trump has consistently appeared averse to the idea of deploying ground troops in Iran, instead signaling he believes that air bombing can force them to agree to a deal on his terms.

Caine and others in Trump’s Cabinet privately view that outcome as unlikely and instead have sought to develop other options that fit within the president’s own parameters, according to multiple sources familiar with recent discussions.

Read the full story on the US military’s options in Iran here.

Tehran’s national security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr issued a list of demands for the US to fulfill before Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

State media published the list of requirements from Zolghadr, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. The list includes measures such as lifting the US naval blockade, withdrawing military forces and permanently ending the war.

Zolghadr also calls for the US to compensate Iran for damage caused by the conflict and release frozen Iranian assets.

“These are the demands of the Iranian people, which they have loudly proclaimed during 160 days of steadfast presence in the field and in the streets,” the politician said.

“Until America corrects its behavior, the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened,” his statement read.

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

Some background: Earlier on Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran is “very close” to reaching a deal with Oman on managing the Strait of Hormuz.

But he cautioned that the reopening of the strait was “subject to other conditions,” including the US making amends for what he said was a violation of the memorandum of understanding agreed between the two countries in June.

Oman’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the negotiations as “positive and constructive.”

On Friday, Iran’s state-affiliated Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) reported that Iranian lawmakers had largely landed on a proposed framework agreement with Oman but were waiting for “final approval.”

Yemeni troops conducted a military operation targeting Iran-backed Houthi militants on Saturday. A spokesperson for the country’s armed forces condemned the group, saying it has “dragged Yemen into regional conflicts in service of foreign agendas and schemes.”

The Houthis are among several Iranian proxies that have threatened to widen the conflict as the US and Israel remain at war with Iran. The rebel group has struck commercial shipping and recently ramped up attacks targeting Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials last week signed a NATO-like defense agreement with Pakistan and Turkey as they looked to bolster the kingdom’s mutual defense.

Now, experts say the Yemeni rebel group sees an opportunity to regain some of its losses during the Iran war, deepening a sense that the Middle East is on the edge of a wider regional conflict.